![The site of a bomb attack is seen in Baghdad July 23, 2015. A car bomb exploded in a crowded marketplace in a mainly Shi'ite Muslim district of the Iraqi capital on Wednesday, killing at least 20 people, police and medical sources said. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad - RTX1LFX6](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/07/RTX1LFX6.jpg/RTX1LFX6.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=h9ibbZbE)
Mushreq Abbas is a contributing writer for Al-Monitor’s Iraq Pulse. He has been managing editor of Al-Hayat’s Iraq bureau since 2005 and has written studies and articles on Iraqi crises for domestic and international publication.
![The site of a bomb attack is seen in Baghdad July 23, 2015. A car bomb exploded in a crowded marketplace in a mainly Shi'ite Muslim district of the Iraqi capital on Wednesday, killing at least 20 people, police and medical sources said. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad - RTX1LFX6](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/07/RTX1LFX6.jpg/RTX1LFX6.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=h9ibbZbE)
![Iraq's Shi'ite paramilitaries and members of Iraqi security forces gather at North of Fallujah in province of Anbar, July 6, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer - RTX1JB2Y](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/07/RTX1JB2Y.jpg/RTX1JB2Y.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=VPk_JFpi)
Mushreq Abbas
![A displaced boy, who fled from Salahuddin province stands in a tent at a refugee camp, on the outskirts of Kirkuk, December 17, 2014. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed (IRAQ - Tags - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST SOCIETY POVERTY) - RTR4IESO](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/06/RTR4IESO.jpg/RTR4IESO.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=z2YvAUx9)
Mushreq Abbas
![Children, who fled from the violence in Mosul, play during sunset inside the Khazer refugee camp on the outskirts of Arbil, in Iraq's Kurdistan region, June 27, 2014. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most influential Shi'ite cleric in Iraq, called on the country's leaders on Friday to choose a prime minister within the next four days, a dramatic political intervention that could hasten the end of Nuri al-Maliki's eight year rule. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah (IRAQ - Tags: CIVIL UNREST POLITICS SOCIETY TPX IMAGES](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/06/RTR3W4JY.jpg/RTR3W4JY.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=pQJnnStF)
Mushreq Abbas
![Iraqi Parliament Speaker Salim al-Jabouri attends a conference at the Foreign Ministry in Baghdad March 31, 2015. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad - RTR4VMP5](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/05/RTR4VMP5.jpg/RTR4VMP5.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=XAtWlrm7)
Mushreq Abbas
![A member of the Iraqi security forces takes up position with his weapon in the desert between Anbar and Kerbala, February 24, 2015. Picture taken February 24, 2015. REUTERS/Mushtaq Muhammed (IRAQ - Tags - Tags: CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT POLITICS MILITARY) - RTR4R3AU](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/04/RTR4R3AU.jpg/RTR4R3AU.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=Qsgh7u6O)
Mushreq Abbas
![Iraq's Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi tours the city of Tikrit after Iraq security forces regained control from Islamist State militants, April 1, 2015. Iraqi troops and Shi'ite paramilitary fighters were battling Islamic State on Wednesday in northern Tikrit, which officials described as the Sunni Muslim militant group's last stronghold in the city. REUTERS/Stringer - RTR4VSL0](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/04/RTR4VSL0.jpg/RTR4VSL0.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=YV5VwDDd)
Mushreq Abbas
![Iyad Allawi (L), Usama al-Nujaifi (2nd L), Iraq's supreme court judge Midhat al-Mahmoud (2nd R) and Nuri al-Maliki (R) stand together during a swearing-in at the parliament headquarters in Baghdad September 8, 2014. Iraq's parliament approved a new government headed by Haider al-Abadi as prime minister on Monday night, in a bid to rescue Iraq from collapse, with sectarianism and Arab-Kurdish tensions on the rise. The parliament approved for the ceremonial posts of vice presidents the last prime minister al-](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/03/RTR45FVC.jpg/RTR45FVC.jpg?h=7cb15be6&itok=Ef-V-KII)
Mushreq Abbas
![A Shi'ite fighter rides a motorbike in the town of Hamrin in Salahuddin province March 5, 2015. As Iraqi forces close in, Tikrit's few remaining civilians are cutting up white clothes and fabric to make flags of surrender, fearing their Shi'ite liberators more than the Islamic State militants occupying the Sunni city. REUTERS/Stringer (IRAQ - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST CONFLICT) - RTR4S8Q5](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/03/RTR4S8Q5.jpg/RTR4S8Q5.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=StkM0lzF)
Mushreq Abbas
![A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter aims his weapon through a hole in a wall on the front line of fighting against Islamic State militants in the outskirts of Mosul January 30, 2015. REUTERS/Ari Jalal (IRAQ - Tags: CIVIL UNREST) - RTR4NNTG](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/02/RTR4NNTG.jpg/RTR4NNTG.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=qQCS_9ms)
Mushreq Abbas
![Sunni tribal fighters take part in a military training to fight against militants of the Islamic State, on the outskirt of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, November 16, 2014. Picture taken November 16, 2014. REUTERS/Ali al-Mashhadani (IRAQ - Tags - Tags: CONFLICT MILITARY) - RTR4EG9J](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/01/RTR4EG9J.jpg/RTR4EG9J.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=vfZbV3Qh)
Mushreq Abbas
![Militant Islamist fighters ride horses as they take part in a military parade along the streets of Syria's northern Raqqa province June 30, 2014. The fighters held the parade to celebrate their declaration of an Islamic "caliphate" after the group captured territory in neighbouring Iraq, a monitoring service said. The Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot previously known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), posted pictures online on Sunday of people waving black flags from cars and holding guns in](/sites/default/files/styles/article_header/public/almpics/2015/01/RTR3WJ0K.jpg/RTR3WJ0K.jpg?h=f7822858&itok=O9JcCktx)
Mushreq Abbas